Art

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Art Craft

Watercolor Paper Transforms into Suggestive Facial Sculptures by Artist Polly Verity

All images © Polly Verity, shared with permission

Polly Verity’s most recent paper sculptures test viewers’ sense of pareidolia. The dexterous artist employs single sheets of watercolor paper for her minimalist projects that morph into solitary faces and kissing figures through a series of bends and twists.

Verity tells Colossal that she’s been crafting repeating geometric patterns for about 15 years, but that it wasn’t until recently that she decided to move beyond crisp folds and clean lines. “When I hit the curved folds that’s when my brain popped. Seemingly impossible things could happen to a sheet of paper,” she writes. “My years of observing and investigating how curve folds behave has given me a feel for bringing the curves into the figurative realm.” The result is a suggestive series of facial profiles sometimes sucking on a straw or smoking a cigarette.

I tried to fold along the profile of a face, and I realized that I could tweak the paper on either side just very slightly and ease curves out to give volume and form. When I tried the same technique in watercolour paper, I suddenly had micro-control over the resulting curved forms and they became soft and sensual. So each face goes on to inform the next and they have become a sort of series.

Keep up with Verity’s paper creations on Instagram and check out which alluring pieces you can add to your own collection in her shop.

 

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A post shared by Polly Verity (@polyscene) on Feb 25, 2020 at 3:40am PST

Art

Dots, Dashes, and Lines Form Astronomical Maps Painted by Shane Drinkwater

All images © Shane Drinkwater

Australian artist Shane Drinkwater writes on his website that when it comes to painting, he’s interested in the “making.” Using a system of lines, dashes, numbers, and circles, Drinkwater creates works that often appear as astronomical maps of imagined star systems. Abstract stars form repeated patterns around vibrant planets. The artist allows the act of painting to dictate how the cosmic compositions land on his canvas, and the results are visually arresting.

“I delve into the act of painting with a minimum repertoire of visual elements aiming for a maximum visual intensity,” Drinkwater writes. “Ideas and images appear through the making of the work, language becomes unnecessary, I let the work speak for me.” To see more of these cool maps and other paintings by Shane Drinkwater, follow the artist on Instagram. (via This Isn’t Happiness)

Art Design

Geometric Doorways and Angular Turrets Form Sand Fortresses by Calvin Seibert

All images © Calvin Seibert, shared with permission

Like many kids with a love for digging in sandboxes, Calvin Seibert (previously) grew up creating grand castles and towers from piles of the sediment. But for Seibert, the practice wasn’t just a childhood pastime. “In hindsight I see that much of what I made was more like sculpture. It really was all about the object and its resonant meanings rather than interiors and spatial flow,” he says.

After studying at the School of Visual Arts, the Colorado-born artist began sculpting modernist buildings featuring sharp angles, clean edges, and various geometric shapes that resemble brutalist architecture rather than something from a children’s story. “While not all of my structures have quite the rugged fortress-like presence of a Kenzo Tange or a Paul Rudolph building, it is something I aim for,” he writes. “Certainly I see my sandcastles in opposition to those frivolous turreted fantasies that Cinderella would feel at home in.”

To create his works, Seibert begins by mixing water and sand to create layers, before packing and smoothing the rest by hand. He cleans the edges with various trowels and knives that he’s made himself. Plus, he never works without a five-gallon pail because it’s “indispensable for digging and fetching water, as well as carrying stuff to the beach.”

I always start at the top and work down, taking great care to keep the horizontals level. I pretty much make things up as I go along, allowing surprises and engineering difficulties to shape the castles. Robert Venturi’s prescription of ‘complexity and contradiction’ is always in the back of my mind, while mash-ups of gameshow sets and artillery bunkers are soon added to the mix.

Seibert tells Colossal that he’s moved to Colorado since making the works featured here, which limits his time on the beach, although he dreams of transforming a pile of sand at the Venice Biennale or as part of Casa Wabi in Mexico. Follow what he’s up to, and perhaps get a glimpse of his next visit to a sandy landscape, on Instagram.

Art

Nevermore Park Manifests the Fictional Universe of Hebru Brantley’s Flyboy and Lil Mama

All images © Amy Lombard, shared with permission

Packed within a 6,000-square-foot space on Chicago’s south side is a fictional universe teeming with pinned up newspaper clippings, towers of retro electronics, and tons of vintage advertising from McDonald’s to Vienna Hot Dogs. It’s the world of Hebru Brantley’s iconic characters, Lil Mama and Flyboy, whose enlarged head rests on the floor in one room of the immersive installation, titled Nevermore Park. Moving through the pathways lined with plastic toys and paint-spattered pallets, visitors pass a downed spaceship and a brick wall of street art, elements that structure Brantley’s narrative for the surreal environment.

The Los Angeles-based artist cites the tales of the superheroes and comic books he engaged with during his childhood living in Chicago as directly impacting his current projects. “I’m in love with creating and I have so many stories I want to tell,” he tells Colossal. “I want my work to create a narrative that hasn’t been told before, in ways others haven’t seen expressed. I’m working to create the things I wished existed.”

Although Brantley created many of the objects specifically for Nevermore Park, he also amassed thousands of pieces of real ephemera that create a strong undercurrent of Chicago’s history as expressed through pop culture, toys, magazines, and found objects. The periodicals lining the newsstand, for example, belonged to his grandmother. “She had saved a number of them and it created a unique opportunity for me to incorporate these real historical artifacts into my body of work for visitors to experience. Everything weaves together with the goal of staying authentic to the stories I wanted to tell,” he says.

Nevermore Park, though, is intended “to be a total sensory experience,” inspiring Brantley to collaborate with WILLS on the audio component, offering a soundtrack that he says visitors always ask about. “Bringing people into a space they wouldn’t normally occupy with sounds that are familiar, amplify the story and culture even more,” he writes. “Sight is an important aspect of the experience but so is the sound piped into each section.”

If you’re in Chicago, there are tickets available to visit Nevermore Park through May 3. Otherwise, head to Instagram to keep up with Brantley and see what’s next for Flyboy, Lil Mama, and Nevermore Park.

 

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A post shared by Christopher Jobson 🦦 (@christopherjobs) on Nov 3, 2019 at 8:23am PST

Art

Impasto-Style Brushstrokes Hover Mid-Air in Illustrative Murals by Sean Yoro

All images © Sean Yoro

Hawaii-born artist Sean Yoro (previously), aka Hula, pairs his illustrative murals of partial figures with bold brushstrokes that hover along building walls. Part of his Undertones series, the monochromatic pieces often feature singular hands and torsos as they reach toward or attempt to grasp the impasto-style strokes.

One especially illusory piece forgoes the bodily element and instead focuses on a singular blue stroke that seems to float through the air and cast a shadow on the brick wall behind it. “Each large scale brushstroke represents the unique passions we all hold within and what we can do with that energy once we tap into it,” said a statement on the artist’s site.

Yoro is one half of Kapu Collective, a collaborative art-and-design group concerned with environmental issues and sustainability, that he formed with his twin brother. Smaller versions of Yoro’s works are available in the collective’s shop. If you want to see the process behind some of his stylized projects, head to Instagram.

Art Design

Undulating Kinetic Sculpture by Julia Nizamutdinova Mimics Intertwined Infinity Signs

Artist and designer Julia Nizamutdinova has created a kinetic sculpture that rotates, twists, and turns in a mesmerizing and hypnotic fashion. Made of plastic, aluminum, and steel, INFI is modeled after the infinity sign in its form and movement, constantly crisscrossing and repeating. When illuminated with an LED light, the edges stand out against the sculpture’s fish-shaped body, and the rhythmic, undulating movements become more clear.

Nizamutdinova tells Colossal that her creation is part of a larger project she calls Cyberflora. “They contain a meditative therapeutic effect from the contemplation of smooth hypnotic movements and the beauty of futuristic forms,” she writes. To see more of Nizamutdinova’s work that falls at the intersection of technology, art, and design, head to YouTube and Instagram.

Art Illustration

Floral-and-Frond Compositions Shape Energetic Wildlife by Raku Inoue

“Whale” (2020). All images © Raku Inoue

Known for his botanical arrangements of beetles, insects, and butterflies, Raku Inoue once again is bringing flora and fauna together. His previous work often positions the animals in stationary poses, resembling a portrait of an owl or a scorpion pinned inside a glass case as part of a collection. The latest pieces in his Natura Wildlife series, though, indicate a liveliness and inclination for movement, from a whale blasting orange flowers from its blowhole to a seahorse grasping a Q-tip.

In an Instagram post, the Montreal-based creative even said he modeled his pink-hued flamingo after Flamingo Bob, the Caribbean bird who was disabled after flying into a hotel window. The artist crafted multiple depictions of the animal as he stares, swims, and mingles with friends, in between his duties as an ambassador for the FDOC, a foundation dedicated to educating locals about wildlife protection. “I thought I would make these images honoring him and his future legacies,” Inoue wrote.

“Staring Bob” (2020)

“Jellyfish” (2020)

“Mingling Bob” (2020)